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The Bees’ Knees, PenguinEggs Magazine Despite a recent Juno (not quite: David Francey took the Juno in the category) for her splendid Book of Days, Susan Crowe still finds it puzzling that people are attracted to her music. Still, last year she formed Brava with Cindy Church and Laura Smith. “I’m not very interested in my career; though I love my work.” She tells Pat Langston. Bees, says Susan Crowe, are instructive creatures. Especially for musicians battling to survive in an industry riddled with ego and obsessed with youth. These industrious little insects, Crowe reflects from her home in Halifax, teach us that. “None of us is more important or better than another. We just all have our job to do, and we do it. That’s prevented me from suffering some of that bitterness and unhappiness I see in people of my age (Crowe is 50) in this business”. Susan Crowe, whose splendid Book of Days netted her Juno and East Coast Music Award nominations in the roots and traditional category earlier this year, knows a bit about bees. Beekeeping was one of her many occupations – along with waitressing, delivering the mail and others – during the almost 15 years she spent away form music, only venturing back into singing and songwriting only in the mid-1990s with the release of her debut album This Far from Home, also a Juno nominee. “In my early 20s, I tried music for a couple of years and I felt pretty uncomfortable. I’m not the most outgoing person. It was difficult for me to insert myself into the business,” she recalls, referring to her stint playing the clubs and coffee houses of Halifax. “Also, I was writing my own songs that didn’t sound like anyone else’s” So, in 1980, she packed up her guitar playing, put her warm alto and flair for dark, spare writing on hold, and headed to Toronto, and then Vancouver. “I was close to 40 when I decided my knees and feet would not hold up forever.” Getting together with some musical friends, she suddenly realized, “Oh my God, maybe I’m not as bad as I think I am.” Not bad indeed. In dedicated, beelike fashion, she followed up her debut with The Door To The River in 1996, and three years later, A Pilgrim’s Mirror, which garnered critical toasts and another nomination, this time for a West Coast Music Award. Over the past few years, she's played the Canadian folk festival circuit and the Kerrville Songwriter’s Festival, toured the Czech Republic twice, and done a swing through the mid-western US. But don’t’ try convincing Crowe that she’s made it. “I’m still not quite certain of my place in this industry. I feel often in it but not of it. Is this a comfortable fit? Often the answer to that question is ‘No’. I tend not to be very trusting of my image because it interferes with my work. And I’m not very interested in my career, though I love my work.” And while her work has been recorded by the likes of John Reischman and the Jaybirds, Quartette, and the Aeolian Singers, Crowe still finds it puzzling that people would be attracted to her music or be interested in reading about her. “Most people would find me just an ordinary woman,” she says, perhaps echoing the rural perspective she acquired growing up in Cow Bay, outside Halifax. Celebrity, she says, turns people into caricatures of themselves. “They forget that the grist for the mill comes from everyday life. It comes from very quotidian matters.” If I’m Spared, from Book of Days, is a song born of everyday concerns. Framed as a letter, the tune is a seemingly simple request that the narrator be remembered to his friends, although the repeated phrase “if I’m spared” and references to the passing seasons undercut the innocent request with a foreboding of death. The song, Crowe says, is based on a letter her great-great-grandfather wrote to his own grown daughter, Ellen (sic) in January 1929, anticipating her planned visit to him in Pictou, Nova Scotia. Full of family news and concluding with a wish list of clothing and favourite beer and tea, the letter, Crowe felt, deserved memorializing, particularly since Heighton dies the day after writing it. The song, delivered with Crowe’s unfailing respect for her subjects illustrates her approach to songwriting, a blend of hard fact and emotional foundation.” Economical and finely crafted, like all her work, it also suggests the discipline that typifies Crowe’s writing practices. “I don’t believe in sitting around waiting for things to come to me. I tend to do some work everyday, and part of my work is reading and informing myself in other ways.” While she’s made her mark as a solo performer, Crowe has also joined forces as of last year with Cindy Church and Laura Smith. Calling themselves Brava, the trio has toured across Canada. In fact, Cindy Church, along with Gwen Swick and Liz Soderberg, sings harmony on the McGarrigle-like Do You Think On Me Still Kindly from the new album. A wistful song, as the title suggests, wonders if reminiscence is strictly a one-way street Do You Think On Me Still Kindly skirts self pity. This is typical of Crowe who, although challenged in life by what she calls an “isolating illness early in life…” and is still afflicted with self-doubt, brings a core of strength and conviction to her art that buoys up the music even in the face of dark lyrics. And while much of Crowe’s music has a melancholy cast, which is simultaneously heightened and assuaged by her lush vocals, a song like Love’s Pure Gold, also from Book of Days, revels in the positive, in this case the certainty that love outlives even those old symbols of permanence, the sun and stars. Dark or hopeful, “I never tell the stories of my songs on stage because I don’t’ want to rob the listener of their own experience of it. “In fact, it’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine when I hear other songwriters tell long, involved stories. I look on it as a failure to trust the imagination. And I know that makes me awkward on stage and I know that I’m not as slick as people want me to be. But there’s nothing I can do about that, and there’s nothing I want to do about that.”  
Canadian Folk Music Bulletin This is a CD of original songs by singer/songwriter Susan Crowe. She is backed by a strong cast of musicians: John Reischman on Mandolin, David Travers-Smith on trumpet and peck horn, Dennis Keldy on Hammond organ and accordion, John Sheard on piano, Mark Mariash on drums, George Koller on bass, Kevin Briet on electric guitar, Jason Fowler and Danny Greenspoon (the producer) on acoustic guitar. Backup harmonies are sung by Gwen Swick, Cindy Church, and Liz Soderburg. The first time I played this album, not listening particularly intently, I found it pleasant but maybe not exceptionally striking - another singer/songwriter, nice enough. Since then I have played the album many more times. And every time I listen to it, without fail, without particularly trying to, I hear something more in it that I did not hear before, and my appreciation and fascination with it grows exponentially, to the point that I am now enthralled with it. Subtly, insidiously, its genius has entwined itself into my consciousness. The melancholy, nostalgic, and uplifting lyrics are threaded through with images of ice, snow, and winter. Three of the eleven songs express longing for an absent or past love, while two more lament an imminent parting. Other themes include relief and redemption (“The Gates of Hell” [sic], Fell Back Up), the weariness of poverty (High Street), the blessing of a true love (Love’s Pure Gold), and She Said No - a poignant description of trying to reach out to someone and touching only a stone wall. Probably the most unique song idea was If I’m Spared which is based on the words of a 1929 letter. The album finishes on a lighter note with a gentle lullaby about the moon. Crowe is a superb songwriter. This is poetry, sung in a clear low voice and complemented by melodies and intricate instrumental accompaniment that adds interest and depth. In thinking about where this album fits in the musical tradition, my impression is that Crowe is a modern day troubadour. Some centuries ago she would have been composing songs like Greensleeves on her lute in courtly halls hung with tapestries. Today, I find her analogous to a female Leonard Cohen. If this sounds like the type of material you enjoy, you will not be disappointed with Book of Days.
Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine, Spring, 2004 Over the course of four albums in the past decade, Nova Scotia’s Susan Crowe has developed into one of Canada’s finest singer-songwriters. Her lyrics are wise and crafted like fine poetry, her melodies are lovely and she sings in a beautifully expressive alto voice. Several of the songs on Book of Days reflect a lost love relationship. In Dreamless, the opening track, Crowe vividly describes a bleak scene of autumn having given way to cold winter amid the absence of a departed lover. Then, in Do You Think on Me Still Kindly, she addresses the former lover and wonders if there are still feelings. A few songs later, in She Said No, Crowe seems to have her answer, one that saddens her. Although broken love affairs have lone been the stock-in-trade of countless singer-songwriters, Crowe’s songs on this theme have a rare maturity. While I’m not sure whether Crowe’s songs of lost love are taken from her own life, they ring with honest authenticity. In some of the other songs, though, she seems to definitely be writing outside of herself, something she does equally well. In High Street, she seems to take on the character of an older and lonely alcoholic living a hard life. In Immigrant’s Lament, she sings to someone missing the life they had in a home they’ve left, and in If I’m Spared, which she based on a 1929 letter by Daniel Heighton of Pictou, Nova Scotia, she sings as someone who, for some reason, has lost and wishes to regain contact with old friends. In addition to Crowe, the album features very tasteful backing from such musicians as John Sheard on piano and accordion, Jason Fowler on guitar and John Reischman on mandolin. Gwen Swick, Cindy Church and Liz Soderberg provide some gorgeous harmonies. COPYRIGHT 2004 Sing Out Corporation COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
The Vancouver Sun, February 21, 2004 Singer/songwriter Susan Crowe can chill you with her lyrics. In the opening track, Dreamless, she speaks for anyone who has experienced loneliness and separation (“I wait for the frost to leave my window / I wait for your step upon the stair”) her words accompanied by John Reischman’s mandolin and Kevin Breit’s electric guitar. She connects winter and emotional loss again on Autumn Leaves Are Blue and makes you feel a sense of loss with She Said No and Immigrant’s Lament. Musically, Book of Days resonates on the strength of Crowe’s clear and tuneful voice, and the mandolin playing of Reischman. The two make Love’s Pure Gold a heartfelt expression of joy. High Street, with John Sheard’s evocative piano, is reminiscent of the songs Joni Mitchell recorded on her classic record, Blue.
Halifax Daily News, January 8, 2004
Mention a Halifax–born singer who departed in frustration to establish a critically acclaimed music career in Vancouver, and most would naturally think of Sarah McLachlan. Think again; think Susan Crowe, a Juno –nominated singer songwriter who recently released her fourth album Book Of Days. The elegant acoustic album showcases Crowe’s insightful writing, beautiful singing and impeccable production. Like many of her songs, Crowe’s own story is one of early promise, frustration, parting and finally reconciliation. Crowe was raised in rural Cow Bay, laying along the eastern headlands of the entrance to Halifax Harbour. Growing up in a musical family, Crowe took early to playing guitar and writing songs. Through the late 70’s she was a regular in the coffee houses and folk clubs in Halifax. But by 1980, frustrated with the stagnant music scene here, Crowe uprooted and moved to Toronto for eight years, then moved further west to Vancouver. She abandoned her music career all the while, working instead as a waitress, art gallery assistant, mail carrier and even a beekeeper. Then in 1994, Crowe was encouraged by a visiting friend to revisit her music, and she found the spark that had long been missing. She re-embraced her music, and went into a studio in Vancouver to record This Far from Home, which garnered a Juno nomination as best roots/ traditional album of the year. Crowe released two more critically acclaimed discs in the 90’s – The Door To The River and A Pilgrim’s Mirror – both on her own Corvus imprint. Two years ago, Crowe returned to Nova Scotia, established a home in Halifax and has played a handful of shows in metro. With the release of this substantial new disc, Crowe has firmly established herself as one of the leading mature voices in the Canadian folk landscape. Pegging her music to a narrow definition though does it a disservice. Crowe breathes in light jazz, contemporary folk, show tunes, acoustic pop and trad country, then breathes out her own richly distilled sound. Her voice has a lush worldly authority that convincingly delivers her carefully crafted lyrics. Crowe brought aboard producer Danny Greenspoon (Great Big Sea, Quartette, Jane Bunnett) to pilot the album, and his understated production lets Crowe’s songs blossom on the vine. Crowe opens the disc with the haunting Dreamless, a stark tale of loneliness set in a frozen landscape, where “the north wind replies to each breath I take.” Pushed along by John Reishman’s mandolin, the understated guitar of Kevin Breitt and the locked in rhythm section of bassist George Koller and drummer Mark Mariesh, the tune is hypnotic in its urgency. Crowe can also deliver the pretty folk melody (Fell Back Up), the Appalachian influenced Whippoorwill, and the delicate piano /vocal gem, Do You Think On Me Still Kindly, with the MacGarrigle sisters-inspired harmonies. (Crowe enlisted Gwen Swick, Cindy Church and Liz Soderberg to sing harmony parts.) This is subtle intelligent music that draws in the listener with its alluring complexity and keeps you listening for its rainy-afternoon beauty.
Kitchener-Waterloo Record, November 2003
Susan Crowe’s gorgeously autumnal Book of Days, the third release on her own Corvus Records label, is my choice for best Canadian folk album of the year. It’s that good in all respects. The songwriting is mature, intelligent and deeply felt. Every melody sticks like maple syrup on a hot waffle and the harmony arrangements by Elora’s Gwen Swick, who sings harmony with Cindy Church and Liz Soderberg, are spine-tingling. Crowe’s voice has never been richer or more resonant.
Vancouver Province, November 2003
Following a pilgrim’s mirror from 2000, Crowe left Vancouver behind for her native Nova Scotia but remains one of our nation’s vital singer/songwriters no matter where she is. Crowe at her best is like eavesdropping on the internal dialogue of a literate and fundamentally loving witness to this deep vale of friggin’ tears. Do You Think on Me Still Kindly is vintage Crowe, kinda formal and kinda naked, while Autumn Leaves Are Blue, co-written with her pal and harmony singer, Cindy Church, is deliciously bleak. However, for a real, beautifully crafted gem you can’t beat the closing Same Old Moon.
Halifax Chronicle Herald, November 2003
There are at least three reasons to give a listen to Susan Crowe. Her voice is uniquely low and soft, she writes appealing melodies which often imply a nostalgia that is not explicit, and her lyrics are three dimensional. When she talks of Love’s Pure Gold (the fifth track) she goes beyond cliché - the gold is contrasted to the burning, blinding sun. Pure love, she implies, goes deeper than searing passion. Not even the stars, (standing in for starry-eyed lovers) tempt her, she sings. Something personal about love rises like a magnetic field brought about by the opposition of these clichés. Love songs are usually less complicated than this. They are also more conventional. Love is a unique experience. But often its initially shocking energy is ensnared by the way our pop culture expresses it. Crowe offers a more ambiguous alternative. Not first love, perhaps, but love recollected in tranquillity. That doesn’t mean love remembered without pain. In Do You Think on Me Still Kindly, Crowe asks, “Does a fire still glow, Does a light still burn, Have you placed your worries behind you. Do You wait and watch, For your heart’s return, Does a gentle stirring remind you?” Her low voice, and the simple accompaniments, beautifully recorded on Book of Days, are at the opposite end of the howling, wailing vocalisms of pop love, tainted as they are by the hard-boiled commercial strategy that exploits soft-porn and tormented vocal chords to sell CDs. In other words, these are adult love songs and, like adult lives, not all about love either, though many deal with loneliness and love remembered. The musicians are first rate, the arrangements having evolved naturally in the studio as the musicians listened to Crowe sing. Guitarists Jason Fowler, Danny Greenspoon and Kevin Breit are supported by jazz bassist George Koller, Mark Mariash plays drum, Dennis Keldy the Hammond organ and accordion, John Reischman mandolin, with background vocals by Gwen Swick, Cindy Church and Liz Soderberg. A few of the tracks are for piano and voice, with just Crowe and pianist John Sheard. In spite of the large number of players, the arrangements on Book of Days are minimalist, more attuned to Crowe’s low-key musical approach than to instrumental overkill.
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bookings: susan@susancrowe.com
Festival Distribution | Susan uses Elixir Strings. |
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